


What’s Past is Personal

by IGOM



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: F/M, Flayn is living her best life, Future Fodlan, Is it modern AU if its in the same timeline?, Professor Seteth, Seteth and Byleth are bros
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-22
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-12 03:09:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29628195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IGOM/pseuds/IGOM
Summary: The year is 5401 of the Adrestian calendar. Byleth visits Enbarr to see an old friend who has some news about a recently discovered tomb.
Relationships: My Unit | Byleth/Claude von Riegan
Comments: 4
Kudos: 67





	What’s Past is Personal

**Author's Note:**

> I'm really, really bad at titles sometimes.
> 
> Now with 50% better title.

Byleth Eisner watched the city of Enbarr from behind the safety of tinted glass in the backseat of a taxi. _How many years has it been since I was last here?_ A decade at least; she never much liked this city. She had preferred the quiet dignity of Fhirdiad when it still stood, or of Derdriu before all the elegant marble buildings that lent it romance had been torn down. But she could understand why Seteth liked this city; his attachment to it was still strong after all these years, its streets and buildings still relatively untouched. There was still nostalgia to be found in Enbarr.

A nondescript cafe on a side street. She paid the driver with a card with a shiny chip in it; Byleth never got the hang of driving herself, and with her constant travels it was too much to maintain a vehicle of her own anyway. She recognized his car without knowing it was his; Seteth had a type for sure, a simple black sedan, nothing frivolous or unnecessary about it. She went inside.

Coffee had long since taken over as the drink of choice in Fodlan, but still she ordered a spiced tea and tipped generously. “I like your hair,” the barista said as the paper cup changed hands. “Not many people can rock Nabatean green.”

 _Thanks, it’s my hair._ “I like yours, too.” It looked like some popular musician; Byleth couldn’t remember the girl’s name. The barista beamed.

The smell of cinnamon from her tea reminded her of things from long ago, like taking midday naps in a palace with tall windows, lazy canal rides in Derdriu, wearing flowing silk dresses with bells sewn on the hem that chimed when she walked. _When we danced, we made our music just by movement._ She touched the chain of her necklace and traced it with a finger down to the ring she kept there. It was battered, the detailing almost worn off and she’d lost one of the stones, but it still warmed her to keep it there in the hollow between her collarbone.

She found Seteth at a table in an alcove, distant from the rest of the shop, dressed in a tweed suit, his hair dyed a deep blue-black; last time it had been his natural green, always long enough to cover his ears. They were people who needed to hide now, changing jobs and bank accounts every thirty years or so; she wondered how many doctorate degrees he obtained over his lifetime. This time was history, a favorite of his that he usually repeated three or four times before switching to creative writing or psychology “for fun.”

“Byleth,” he murmured as she sat down. “It’s good to see you again.” They spoke old Fodlandic, not an odd thing for a man in Seteth’s position to know. “How have you been?”

“Busy.” She sipped her tea, mildly surprised that he had a cup of coffee in front of him. She shook off her coat and draped it over the chair carelessly. “Getting my affairs in order to die again, you know.”

He hummed his agreement. “I really thought that perhaps last time, I would step away for a good ten years at least, but then, well, something of interest came to light.”

She nodded, understanding; Goddess, this was good tea. “Haven’t decided where I might go this time. Fodlan is starting to wear thin.”

“Flayn went to Sreng, she’s a snowboarding instructor of all things.” She smiled; she was always the most adventurous of them. Last time, Flayn had been a radio DJ of some fame. “Apologies, Sirina. I forget they changed the name of that country, when was that?”

“Three centuries, give or take fifty years.” Byleth laughed when he frowned at himself. “Time really flies when you’re studying the past?”

“Very amusing.” He took a sip of his coffee, shuddered, and set it back down; always wanted to fit with the times, this one.

“And how have you been?”

“Well, thank you. I miss Flayn of course, but she sounds so happy when she calls me and tells me about her students and her work. Perhaps when it is my time to retire I’ll go to Sirina myself for a few years.” Another sip, this time with less revulsion. “I do have to say, it is a comfort I no longer have to worry about her as I did before.”

Byleth understood what he meant; the playing of death, going into hiding and popping back elsewhere a few years later was a bit tedious, but the fact that most of Fodlan didn’t even know the old legends and myths anymore did give them some freedoms, especially Flayn. Crests were so rare these days they were seen as unexplainable phenomena best left to crackpots with webcams and internet than to the public consciousness at large. “You said you had something important to tell me.”

“Yes, of course.” He rustled in a jacket pocket. “A colleague of mine in the archeology department just finished a dig in Almyra. She wrote a paper detailing where the old capital ought to be, and it impressed some rich family claiming ties to the Riegan line that they paid for a grant-that’s not important,” he added as she smiled at him, feeling a bit indulgent.

“You can tell me, I don’t mind.” He set a box on the table, but she didn’t take it; it was a plain paper box, the kind that one would get from a department store after purchasing jewelry. “So, she had a grant to dig in Almyra.”

Another sip of his drink; was Seteth nervous? How unlike him. It took a lot to unnerve any of them at this point, centuries of life jading them more than any of them liked to admit. Even Flayn. “Yes, and well, she was close. She found the royal tomb of the Crescent Moon Dynasty.”

“I have a feeling you’re going to tell me something I won’t like. What is the Crescent Moon Dynasty?” Her tea no longer appealed; she began to feel a bit sick.

He blinked, and then chuckled. “Of course, you lived through those years, why would you know the frivolous names historians give eras later. It’s a line of kings from Almyra, considered to be the start of Almyra’s golden age in terms of economic and scientific discovery. You can imagine how they got that name.”

Her throat felt tight; even breathing was painful. “She exhumed him, didn’t she?” Fingers found her necklace again, and she gripped it tight, hoping the chain wouldn’t snap as it dug into her nape. He was never supposed to move from where she left him, the place she visited regularly until war and desert sands claimed that crypt and even she lost the place of it. “And my children?”

“I’m sorry, my dear Byleth. I can only imagine how this must feel. You must understand, she has the support of a family claiming kinship with the Riegans, so no one else has raised any objections.” Her eyes fell on the box. “It is a big deal in archeology to find the tomb of the first king of that line.”

Byleth threw her head back with a groan; overdramatic perhaps, but this smarted more than it ought. How many centuries had it been? And yet it still ached. “He was the fourth.”

“Pardon?”

“His great-great-grandfather was the first of their line. Khalid was the fourth.” How many times had that point been made when they ruled together? Only every Sothis-damned meeting it seemed.

Seteth laughed. “You know very well why he’s considered the first. The other kings were, ah, did not rule with distinction.” True; even his father, who Byleth adored, had been lackluster as a king. He tapped the box. “This was in the tomb.”

Byleth eyed the box, picked it up and opened it. A ring with a rainbow of gems set in silver, obviously lovingly cleaned by some very skilled archeologists’ assistants. _Never thought I would see this again._ Unlike the one around her neck, the detailing and settings on his ring were still crisp and intact. “How much trouble will you be in if they find this has gone missing?”

A shrug, a dignified sip of coffee. “It’s already been blamed on one particularly incompetent intern, so none.” Another shrug. “It was already photographed and catalogued, so I don’t see the harm of returning it to its rightful owner.” He watched her. “Tell me your thoughts, my friend.”

 _My friend._ Khalid used to call her that, though later he admitted it was because he was too frightened to give voice to his real feelings. A man who spent his childhood hiding out of necessity had every right to be cautious when it came to bearing his heart whole like he wanted. She shut the box and stuck it in her pocket. “Some things are meant to stay buried.” She tapped her fingers against the paper cup. “Does it still hurt for you, too?”

Rare to see Seteth look so wistful, and he smiled in a melancholy way. “Not a day goes by that I don’t think about my wife.”

She nodded and sipped her tea; cold now, but it still wasn’t too bad cold. “Thank you.” Byleth stood up. “It was good to see you, Seteth.”

“Always a pleasure, Byleth. Thank you.”

The hotel room looked like every other corporate hotel room in Fodlan; mass produced paintings, white bedding and bath things. Beds for kings and queens had been colorful; at least hers had been, drowning in silk cushions that sometimes exploded in a flurry of feathers when she and Khalid got a little too enthusiastic in their lovemaking. Oh, how he would laugh when it happened, burying his face in her shoulder while the feathers snowed down coating them in a fine dusting of down. Correction; they would both laugh, usually still tangled in each other’s bodies.

 _You’re not a queen anymore._ Just a drifter now, really, moving from life to life, place to place. A peaceful, sedate life, one that would have never been possible when she was young. _Khalid, if only you could see it now, this world you dreamed_. Byleth took the box from her pocket and opened it again. She reached up and felt for the clasp of the chain around her throat. They clinked when she threaded her husband’s wedding ring through the chain, and she clasped it back around her neck, letting the rings fall on her breastbone.

A change of scenery was in order, most definitely. Usually between lives, they would lay low for awhile, float around to avoid being caught, then make up some papers and move back into society. Not this time; this time, she knew where she wanted to go and what she wanted to do. _What’s a good name for an archeology professor?_


End file.
